


They say the first to go is regret

by hysp



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:58:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hysp/pseuds/hysp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond never asks idle questions. Q is too far past the precipice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They say the first to go is regret

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, AO3. I finally decided to join.

They say the first to go is regret. 

He knows it is never going to be more than fleeting moments, a way to pass time between two playground giants who have never needed to realize anything beyond their own scope of conquests. Between every mission, score is kept. How many times 007 comes back trailing the pieces of a broken country, suit intact. How many times Q retaliates with directions purposefully wrong and a voice something horrid. It’s childish, really. 

Bond is a conquest. Q is sure he is one as well. 

In the face of a man formed from destructive force, Q laughs in challenge. And as time goes, the lines blur. As much as Q lives in theories and swaddles each action in layers of careful research, Bond lives in now and you don’t conquer a man like that. You fall in step. You fall into bed. No regrets. There’s no time for regrets when you choose to bed a double-oh. 

“Your place or mine.” 

Bond never asks idle questions. Q is too far past the precipice.

-

They say the next to go is time.

As 007’s footsteps pound loud enough to hear through the radio, Q measures time with each slap of concrete and labored huff. Right turn, stop. Gunfire. Left turn, left again, second hallway, WATCH YOURSELF, yes, that door, I SAID LISTEN, no, that door-that door, well if you’re going to do it all on your bloody own than what am I–BEHIND YOU, run. Stop. Gunfire. Grunt, thump, wheeze. Wet crack. Are you going to listen now? 

Immeasurably long hours spent with his voice hoarse from speaking and an agent slightly less likely to die. On the days, weeks 007 is deployed, Q grips his mug a little tighter, types a little faster. 007 reports back to MI6 and that night, Q comes a little harder.

-

After time, it’s sight, sound, consciousness.

Perhaps like burning, Q supposes, when he startles awake, entangled in cold sheets and nothing but the whisper of an indentation on the bed next to him. Even through sleep-filled haze he sees the empty decanter and shattered glass. 

It’s more like drowning, Q decides. That’s better. Drowning is slow. Drowning is stupid. He doesn’t know how to swim and Bond doesn’t come back to bed. Q wakes alone again in the morning. He throws out all the liquor in his flat the next day.

-

They say the last to go is breath.

Things go wrong in South Sudan. Headquarters is a tornado of open books and crumpled blueprints and monitors that can’t keep up. Q’s glasses slide down his nose again; he wipes at sweat. Bond is not where he is supposed to be. Q has nowhere for him to go. He feels, more than hears, the dark chuckle through his headset. Everything moves so slowly. It’s a lot like drowning and he can’t swim. It’s far away, colorless, altogether too cold. He holds his breath, forgets to breathe, gasps and gasps and it’s a lot like drowning and then it’s not – it’s startlingly crisp, clear, scorching – Q grips his hair with both hands and shouts silent commands in his own head he knows will do no good.

And as quick as his world comes back to color he hears the black, black sound of sudden, razor-sharp inhale cut off by stutter, choke of blood. A gurgle, cough, soft exhale on the same murmured breath and it’s over.

-

They say the last to go is breath.

No, Q thinks. The last to go is your heart.


End file.
